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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29890992">can you feel my heart?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/it_wasntme/pseuds/it_wasntme'>it_wasntme</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Chapter 138 spoilers, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Other, Reader-Insert, Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan Manga Spoilers, Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan Season/Series 04 Spoilers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 17:22:28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,926</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29890992</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/it_wasntme/pseuds/it_wasntme</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>as i go through the five stages of grief, when do you take the blame? it's all your fault and you're not here to face the music.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jean Kirstein/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>35</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>can you feel my heart?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>attack on titan ch138 spoilers ahead! read at your own risk!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>     "Promise me,"</p>
<p>     Your words are hushed against his lips as you kiss him. "Come back to me, okay? Just promise me."</p>
<p>     He gives you a light chuckle as calloused thumbs brush along your cheeks. "Promises were never your thing..."</p>
<p>     You kiss him again as his hands travel across your neck, your jaw, your cheekbones. "Then don't promise me, just do it." Your eyes slightly sting from the dirt and smoke in the air. "Please, Jean. Come back to me,"</p>
<p>     He nods as his lips brush against yours, his warm breath encasing them. "Yeah, I will. I'll come back,"</p>
<p>.·:·.☽✧✦✧☾.·:·.</p>
<p>     On the first night, you look at the moon from your bedroom window. "The moon looks beautiful tonight, Jean." As you pull your blanket up to your chin, your heart starts beating faster. "...I wish you were here." There's no response for you, just the sound of your own breathing and soft sniffling.</p>
<p>✰</p>
<p>     On the first night, he's restless as he sits next to the campfire. Jean's eyes drink in the luminescent moon, the glow casting a dull light across the wooded thicket they were resting in. <em>'Are you also looking at the moon?' </em>He wondered. <em>'Are you thinking of me just as much as I'm thinking of you?'</em></p>
<p>     Connie leans his head on Jean's shoulder and yawns. "Thinking about them?" Jean nods and Connie lightly punches his shoulder. "You'll be fine...We've made it this far."</p>
<p>     Connie clenches his hand in a fist and raps it on his forehead a few times. "Knock on wood," Jean gives him a weak chuckle before falling silent, the both of them understanding the odds. The odds of their survival.</p>
<p>     As Connie drifts off into a light slumber at Jean's side, the brunette can't help but look back at the moon. <em>'I promise...'</em> He thinks. <em>'I promise to come back to you.'</em></p>
<p>.·:·.☽✧✦✧☾.·:·.</p>
<p>     When you wake up in the morning, it's before the sun is up. You can feel the fatigue running through your muscles as you stretch. When you make your way to your kitchen, you fry an egg.</p>
<p>     As you force yourself to eat, you stare out your window to watch for Jean. Not that he was expected to be back anytime soon, but because if he did show up early, you wanted to greet him at the door.</p>
<p>✰</p>
<p>     When Jean wakes Connie up, his chest is filled with dread. Every fiber of his being is telling him to turn back, to go back home to you. But he couldn't, he had signed away that right the second he joined the Scouts.</p>
<p>     That's what the Scouts did, they moved forward. Even in the face of adversity, even in the face of death, even in the face of the overwhelming selfishness of knowing he was leaving the people he loved behind; he was too caught up in moving forward.</p>
<p>.·:·.☽✧✦✧☾.·:·.</p>
<p>     You decide that it's easier to see Jean from your front step than it is from your kitchen window. So you sit on your step, ignoring the looks of pity that your neighbors sent your way.</p>
<p>     You had things to do. You had to clean up the house for when Jean got home, you had some laundry that needed washing, if the Wall Titans hadn't walked through the market then it would've been a good day to go grocery shopping.</p>
<p>     But instead, you decide to sit and wait for Jean with a book at your side. You don't read the book while you wait, but when he gets back you want it to be right next to you. That way you don't have to look for it when he gets back, you can read it to him while he takes a bath and as he falls asleep like he would do for you.</p>
<p>✰</p>
<p>     Jean decides that it's for the best. As he grabs Pieck from a Titan's mouth and makes his way to Eren's nape, Jean knows that he doesn't have a choice. So he wraps the explosives around him as best as he can.</p>
<p>     There were other jobs that he could've done. He could've taken down Titans while someone else focused on Eren, helped Mikasa take down the pig that had Armin, if Levi wasn't injured and was down here fighting then Jean might've been helping Gabi and Falco navigate where they were going.</p>
<p>     But he wasn't. Instead, he was here, wrapping sticks of dynamite around the neck of one of his best friends. Jean doesn't want to kill him, but he needs to get back to you. Then he could read with you as you make breakfast, then he could see his mother again. He wanted to be there for you, just like you were there for him.</p>
<p>.·:·.☽✧✦✧☾.·:·.</p>
<p>     As you lay in your bed, chest heaving with bated breath, he inhales a gas- or was it steam? It fills his lungs and his brain, making his tongue feel like cotton.</p>
<p>     As you start to feel anxious, Jean starts to feel acceptance. He would be turned into a titan, a mindless one at that.</p>
<p>     <em>'Are they sleeping?'</em> He thinks. <em>'It's pretty early in the morning, sun's barely risen.'</em> Jean's heart cracks at the sound of children screaming, Gabi and Falco's frantic whimpers invading his thoughts.</p>
<p>     The children held onto their parents, arms entwined, and faces contorted in an expression that was worse than grief. As Levi drags Pieck and Falco away from their families, Jean's thoughts turn back to the promise he made with himself.</p>
<p>     Connie wraps his arm around Jean's shoulders, holding in his tears. "Do you remember, Jean? During our graduation..."</p>
<p>     Jean blinks away a small tear as he and Connie smile at each other. The last sight either of them will see. "Yeah, I remember."</p>
<p>     "You're why, Jean. You're why we made it this far. We ended up saving the world because of you."</p>
<p>✰</p>
<p>    <em> 'Is he okay?'</em> You think, rubbing your eyes in an attempt to erase the deep bags.<em> 'It's so early...I hope he's okay.'</em> Your heart feels heavy, weighted with the uneasiness that you always felt in your adolescence. The only difference is that Jean isn't there to comfort you.</p>
<p>     Your hiccups can be heard throughout your room as you cry into your hands, sobs tearing through your chest. It feels like the room is closing in on you, your breathing getting shallower and shallower by the second. <em>'Is he okay? Is he okay?'</em></p>
<p>.·:·.☽✧✦✧☾.·:·.</p>
<p>     His last thoughts are filled with you. The time you cried from happiness when he took you to dinner for your birthday. When you tricked him into drinking saltwater at the beach. When Armin caught the two of you getting frisky in the library.</p>
<p>     Everything was blindingly you and Jean wouldn't have it any other way. But as his fingers feel like they're being pricked by pins and needles and he struggles to remember how your face felt in his hands, Jean thinks.</p>
<p>
  <em>     'I wish I was with you.'</em>
</p>
<p>✰</p>
<p>     The last thoughts you have before your body is taken by sleep are filled with Jean. Like when you met his mom, a woman so kind and warm that she felt like home. When he had found matching outfits for the two of you. When he let you cut his hair.</p>
<p>     It felt like your life was flashing before your eyes, but it was only the parts when his life intersected with yours. (At the point it was Jean's life flashing before your eyes, wasn't it?)</p>
<p>     As your eyelids start to droop and your breathing slows, you feel your heart stop beating for a split second.</p>
<p>
  <em>     'Jean...Why didn't you promise me? You always keep your promises, so why couldn't you just make that one with me?'</em>
</p>
<p>.·:·.☽✧✦✧☾.·:·.</p>
<p>     When the two surviving members of the 104th and their captain return, you feel your heart drop. Nowhere did you see his hair, his stubble, his kind eyes. As Armin comforts you despite your lack of reaction, you still find your eyes looking around the city when you walk home.</p>
<p>     A tall man walked past you and Armin, whistling a sharp tune with his hands tucked into his pockets. You almost sob at the sight when you realize it wasn't Jean. Armin also looks over his shoulder to get a look at the man's face, his face crumpling as he realizes what he had just done.</p>
<p>     You didn't ask Armin what happened, you told him you didn't want to know.</p>
<p>     Jean wouldn't want you to grieve, he'd want you to be happy. But how can you do that when he's not with you? How can you do that when you never told him you loved him before he left?</p>
<p>.·:·.☽✧✦✧☾.·:·.</p>
<p>     When you knock on Ms. Kirstein's door, you tear up at the sight of her smile. Her grin falls when she sees it's not her son, just his partner with dried tears on their face.</p>
<p>     She ushers you inside, pulling out a seat at the dining room table.</p>
<p>     "He didn't make it." You whimper out. "He's gone."</p>
<p>     As Ms. Kirstein encases you in her arms, you feel her small form start to shake. How selfish could you get? Making the mother of a dead man comfort you?</p>
<p>     You hug her back as she sobs into your shoulder, holding her tight as she kneels on the ground.</p>
<p>     "His body..." She chokes out, her breathing uneven. "Could they retrieve it?"</p>
<p>     You only shake your head as she sobs again.</p>
<p>     "What happened? Do you know how it happened?"</p>
<p>     You shake your head again as you feel your chest bloom with guilt. "No...I didn't ask." You whisper out. "I'm sorry."</p>
<p>     She slowly nods as she looks up at you. "I don't think- I don't think I really wanted to know anyway."</p>
<p>     That evening, you cook for Ms. Kirstein as she grieves. It was the least you could do for the woman that gave <strike>you</strike> the world someone as amazing as Jean.</p>
<p>.·:·.☽✧✦✧☾.·:·.</p>
<p>     As you lay in your bed that night, you can feel your heart beating in your fingers. You can feel each pulse through your arms, your legs, your palms, even behind your eyes.</p>
<p>     If you try hard enough, you can pretend it's Jean's heartbeat and that your mattress is his chest. If you try hard enough, the prickle from clenching your jaw feels like Jean's stubble brushing across your chin. If you try hard enough, the feeling of your nightshirt's sleeves almost feels like his hands wiping away your tears.</p>
<p>     Until you remember that Jean's chest was firmer than to your old mattress, that his stubble didn't make your jaw lock up when you felt it, that his hands were rough and big and warm and that your nightshirt is none of those things.</p>
<p>         As you <strike>cry</strike> lay in bed that night, you pretend that Jean is there with you. That he could see the waning moon with you. He'd joke about it losing weight, that summer was coming and it wanted to look good to go to the beach.</p>
<p>     You'd laugh and roll your eyes, glad that his hands weren't on your face to feel how warm your cheeks were. A snarky response to his comment would make him chuckle and pull you tighter to his chest and you'd feel his heartbeat in sync with yours.</p>
<p>     "Jean..." You would say, voice much quieter than it was moments before. "Can you feel my heart?"</p>
<p>     And he'd kiss your shoulder, fingers tracing shapes on your forearm.</p>
<p>     But you'd never get your answer because he wasn't with you.</p>
<p>     You were just alone in your bed, pretending your heartbeat was his.</p>
<p> </p>
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